The SA club relays have been traditionally one of those awkward events for the organising club as it virtually eliminates them from being a competitive entity. This year the Southern Arrows took over this event as a fundraising activity and to gain exposure and awareness of the squad, enabling all the clubs to be included in the competition for the first time in many years. The “Southern Arrows Roulette” was a two person format with two courses for each competitor, which proved to be a fast paced and action packed day for all involved. The assembly area in the centre of Gravel Pit (Yalanga, 1993, Irena Palmer/Ian Harding/Ian Smith) set the tone by being a well sheltered and picturesque location for the day and allowed for the complex nature of the relay format.

The race kicked of at 10:30 with competitors scattering in every direction into the forest in a spectacular fashion. The terrain included open fast ground with moderate-excellent visibility in the eucalypt forest with clusters of complex rock for the first half of the course. Competitors then crossed into open sheep grazing land with more of the complex rock and some steepening gullies. After the second leg there appeared to be a tight competition developing in Group 6, with Tjuringa’s Ben Lee, Yalanga’s Brodie Dobson-Keefe and OHOC’s Simon Mitchell all returning to tag their 3^rd runners within 30 seconds of each other. In the top group (group 1) Tjuringa’s Timo Sild and Greg Morcom extended their lead to an unbeatable amount. At the completion of the third leg it looked as though there would still be a tight competition in the open women (group 3) with OHOC’s Robin Uppill and Tintookies’ Alison Radford only separated by 52 seconds overall.

At the completion of the race all but one class had clear winners with the only exception being group 4 which resulted in a dead heat between OHOC’s Michael Roberts/Adrian Uppill and Tintookies’ Tom Dose/Benjamin Diment. In the Club Points competition it came down to a draw between Tjuringa and OHOC proving that Lachlan Hallett’s and Simon Uppill’s convoluted and confusing points system did not show a bias to any clubs.

Many thanks must go to Yalanga Orienteers who gave up this event and their equipment for the Southern Arrows. Yalanga also refused any royalty for the use of their map (they even seemed grateful for us to deplete their old offset printed map stocks!!). John Lyon must be thanked for acting as controller and advice-giver to the Southern Arrows. Simon Uppill, Vanessa Round and Zebedy Hallett did very commendable jobs as course setters. All of the Arrows need to be thanked for their tireless efforts both on the day and the late nights leading up to the event. The Southern Arrows are now looking forward to trying their hands at another event in 2007.